Hardware ID to prevent software piracy
Contents
1. 5 199 066 A 3 1993 380 4 5 357 573 A 10 1994 380 25 5 379 343 A 1 1995 380 4 5 490 216 A 2 1996 380 4 5 491 804 A 2 1996 Heath et al 395 275 Continued FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS EP 0844549 Al 5 1998 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Silent safeguard An anti piracy device lets you hear the bands without the blips B Fox New Scientist Aug 21 1999 v 163 n 2200 p 12 Continued Primary Examiner Matthew B Smithers 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Merchant amp Gould PC 57 ABSTRACT In one embodiment the invention is a 64 bit hardware ID H W ID for tying a software product to a particular com puter to prevent software piracy The 64 bit hardware ID represents ten different components of the user s computer the CD ROM device the disk adapter the disk device the display adapter the first drive serial number the MAC address the processor serial number the processor type the RAM size in Mb and the SCSI adapter Each time the soft ware product is opened the expanded H W ID is compared to the hardware on the computer to determine whether a prede termined minimum number of components match In one embodiment the expanded H W ID allows for expansion of the user s computer because so long as the component origi nally listed in the expanded H W ID can be found on the computer then that component matches the expanded H W ID Typically seven out of ten components in the expanded H W ID must match the compu2. The invention generally relates to systems and methods for preventing piracy or illicit use of software by identifying hardware components of a computer More particularly this invention relates to such systems and methods that allow hardware components of the underlying computer to be upgraded and the software to be legitimately installed on the upgraded machine without triggering the anti piracy protec tion BACKGROUND Computer software is a unique consumer product in that the same product can be replicated many times after being sold Once a software product is sold typically as software code on a computer readable disk the purchaser can easily copy the code to other computer readable media thereby rep licating the same product many times over This characteristic of software can be a tremendous benefit in terms of lowering manufacturing costs and facilitating distribution For instance easy replication allows a software manufacturer to distribute one physical copy of the software product and sell a multi seat license that legally empowers the purchaser to install the software product on many different computers Unfortunately this benefit comes at a cost of open abuse One well known abuse is piracy An unscrupulous party can obtain a copy of the object code legally or illegally and then illicitly replicate and resell pirated copies of the product Software companies attempt to monitor piracy activities but detection is often
3. 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 different the upgraded computer is more like the original computer and the software product is permitted to operate Conversely if many or all components are different the upgraded computer more closely resembles a new com puter and the software product is prevented from operating on this new computer One way the software product makes this determination is by trying different permutations ofthe hardware ID changing at least one digit per try while leaving other digits unchanged Each modified hardware ID is concatenated with the product ID and then hashed to produce the test ID If this trial and error process yields a match between the test and original license files the software product is assured that only one or afew components have been altered and the software product is permitted to run FIG 5 shows steps in a method for running the software product 36 on the computer 20 after upgrade The method is described with continuing reference to FIG 2 The steps are performed by software code within the software product on the customer computer At step 190 the software product changes at least one digit in the hardware ID while leaving the other digits unchanged to produce a modified hardware ID For example the software ID might toggle one digit in the 5 digit hardware ID while maintaining the other four digits the same The software product concatenates the product ID and modified ha
4. hardware ID represents ten different components of the user s computer the CD ROM device the disk adapter the disk device the display adapter the first drive serial number the MAC address the processor serial number the processor type the RAM size in Mb and the SCSI adapter Each time the software product is opened the expanded H W ID is compared to the hardware on the computer to determine whether a predetermined minimum number of components match In one embodiment the expanded H W ID allows for expansion of the user s computer because so long as the component originally listed in the expanded H W ID can be found on the computer then that component matches the expanded H W ID Typically seven out of ten components in the expanded H W ID must match the computer before the software product will operate FIG 2 shows an anti piracy system 300 that facilitates activation of a software product with an activation authority for installation and use on a particular computer The system 300 includes a customer computer 20 and an activation server 334 which resides at the activation authority remote from the 0 20 25 30 35 40 45 55 4 customer The customer computer 20 and activation server 334 are interconnected by a network 336 to provide data communication In the absence of a customer computer s access to a network the manufacturer or trusted third party may provide proxy access to the activation serve
5. 110 evaluates the hardware IDs associated with the product IDs to deter mine how they have changed For instance if the two hard ware IDs differ in one or two digits which is an acceptable indication of upgrade the activation unit will compute a new license file return it to customer computer and create a new record in the database 116 This can be the case even if there are multiple entries in the database for a single product ID For instance further analysis might reveal that the hardware ID has remained substantially the same excepting one or two digits in each table entry for the product ID On the other hand suppose the activation unit determines that any two hardware IDs for the same product ID differ by more than two of the five digits This case indicates that the computer albeit incrementally upgraded has become effec tively a new computer In this case the activation unit returns a message denying a new license file and explaining that a new license is required before the product can be reinstalled and run on the new computer In this manner the customer cannot incrementally upgrade all products in the computer one at a time to effectively produce a new computer without payment of a new license fee Expanded Hardware ID In another embodiment the invention comprises an expanded hardware ID H W ID that is not 5 digits but instead is 64 bits The 64 bit hardware ID represents ten different components of the user
6. 12 United States Patent Hughes et al US007503072B2 US 7 503 072 B2 Mar 10 2009 10 Patent No 45 Date of Patent 54 75 73 21 22 65 63 51 52 58 56 HARDWARE ID TO PREVENT SOFTWARE PIRACY Inventors Aidan T Hughes Bellevue WA US David Barnaby Pearce West Palm Beach FL US Assignee Microsoft Corporation Redmond WA US Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 2544 days Appl No 09 859 915 Filed May 17 2001 Prior Publication Data US 2001 0044782 Al Nov 22 2001 Related U S Application Data Continuation in part of application No 09 070 518 filed on Apr 29 1998 now Pat No 6 243 468 Int Cl H04L 29 00 2006 01 H04L 9 00 2006 01 U S CL xen 726 26 705 51 705 59 Field of Classification Search 380 201 380 203 231 232 705 51 52 56 57 58 705 59 726 26 See application file for complete search history References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 658 003 A 4 688 169 A 4 796 220 A 5 182 770 A 4 1987 Hellman 8 1987 Joshi 364 200 1 1989 Wolfe 364 900 1 1993 Medveczky et al 705 56 222 224 CD Key Install 20 Customer Computer 2 22 380 25 36 Program Hashing Algorithm Produci ID 118 Customer PID H W ID 4 4 112 License file 102
7. PID H W ID and License file 160 Send License file to Customer Computer Store license file Fig 3 U S Patent Mar 10 2009 Sheet 4 of 6 US 7 503 072 B2 170 Start Program Get PID 172 174 Generate H W ID 176 Compute test ID from PID and H W ID 178 etrieve License file fro memory 180 Compare test ID with License file 184 Allow Program to Operate Lock Program Fig 4 U S Patent Mar 10 2009 Sheet 5 of 6 US 7 503 072 B2 Change digit in H W ID To get modified H W ID Concatenate PID and Modified H W ID 194 Compute test ID from PID and modified H W ID 196 Compare test ID with license file Tried All permutations of H W ID 200 Allow Program to Operate Lock Program Fig 5 U S Patent Lock Program Mar 10 2009 Sheet 6 of 6 602 Start Program 606 608 Compare portion of H W ID with all More portions of H W ID to examine s count greater than minimum Fig 6 Allow Program to Operate US 7 503 072 B2 618 US 7 503 072 B2 1 HARDWARE ID TO PREVENT SOFTWARE PIRACY REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This is a continuation in part of U S patent application Ser No 09 070 518 entitled SOFTWARE ANTI PIRACY SYSTEM THAT ADAPTS TO HARDWARE UPGRADES filed Apr 29 1998 now U S Pat No 6 243 468 which is incorporated by reference herein TECHNICAL FIELD
8. a match between the expanded H W ID portion and a hardware com ponent on the user s machine then one is added to a count step 612 The count is used to determine how closely the user s computer matches the expanded H W ID At step 614 it is determined whether there is another portion of the expanded H W ID that has not been examined Ifso the method returns to step 606 and another portion of the expanded H W ID is examined However if all portions of the expanded H W ID have been examined and compared to the hardware on the user s computer then it is determined whether the count is greater than a minimum number estab lished by the software product manufacturer step 616 Typi cally the minimum will be six unless the dockable flag is set in which case the minimum will be four So if seven com ponents of the expanded H W ID are found on the user s computer then the count will be seven and the program will fully operate 618 However if the count does not exceed the minimum then the program will be locked step 620 or the program will operate in a reduced functionality mode In other words if the count is greater than the predeter mined minimum the software product is enabled to fully operate on the computer step 618 On the other hand if the count is not greater than the predetermined minimum i e the no branch from step 616 the software product is locked and prevented from operating on the computer step 6
9. authority That is the only thing that has changed in the computation of the test and license files is the hardware ID The product ID and the hash algorithm are the same for both computations A different hardware ID suggests that the underlying hard ware components have been altered in some manner For instance reconfiguring the floppy disk drive or replacing the hard disk drive might change the hardware ID Of course an entirely different computer with a different set of hardware components might also result in a different hardware ID Ifan unscrupulous customer attempts to install the product on another computer the software product will determine that the test and license files do not match and will self lock thereby preventing its operation on the different computer The customer is then forced to contact the activation authority to obtain a new license file and if appropriate pay an addi tional licensing fee for an additional installation Another advantage is that the anti piracy system is sensi tive to the situation in which the customer has upgraded his her computer without effectively creating a new machine and is now attempting to reinstall the software product on the upgraded computer In this situation the software product determines whether a new set of hardware components in the computer is substantially different from the original set of hardware components If only one or a few components are 20 25 30 35
10. converts information in memory to video output to a display such as video adapter 48 It corresponds to a hash of the video adapter PCI vendor and device Ids The first drive serial number portion of the H W ID iden tifies the hard disk drive 27 ofthe user s computer by a hash of the operating system assigned serial number of the first partition on that drive 20 25 30 35 40 50 55 60 65 10 The Media Access Control MAC address is a hardware address of a network interface 53 connecting the computer to a shared network The processor serial number portion of the H W ID iden tifies the manufacturer s serial number of the processing unit 21 The processor type portion of the H W ID identifies the type of processing unit 21 It corresponds to a hash of the CPU manufacturer family ID and model number The RAM portion of the H W ID identifies the size of RAM 25 in megabytes The SCSI adapter portion of the H W ID identifies the Small Computer Systems Interface adapter 32 or 34 for example of the user s computer The expanded H W ID is created at installation of the software product 36 and may be stored on the user s computer by itself or as part of a license file stored on the user s com puter The license file is a file containing information that has been digitally signed by the activation authority The expanded H W ID is created using the first instance of each component encountered during the instal
11. s computer the CD ROM device 30 the disk adapter 32 the disk device 27 the display adapter 48 the first drive 27 serial number the network interface 53 MAC address the processor 21 serial number the processor 21 type the RAM 25 size in Mb and the SCSI adapter 32 or 34 The 64 bits in the expanded H W ID are divided between the ten different components depending on the ability to differentiate between computers based on the components For example if there are only two possible CD ROM devices available in the marketplace the CD ROM portion of the H W ID would be represented by fewer bits than if there were thousands of different CD ROM devices available Thus the number of bits corresponding to a component typically cor responds roughly to the ability to differentiate computers based on that particular component The CD ROM device portion of the H W ID is typically the manufacturer s ID of the CD ROM device The CD ROM portion corresponds to a hash of the CD ROM device identi fication string The disk adapter portion of the H W ID is the hard disk drive interface 32 connecting the hard disk 27 to the system bus 23 It corresponds to a hash of the disk adapter peripheral component interface PCI vendor and device IDs The disk device portion of the H W ID is the hard disk drive 27 It corresponds to a hash of the disk device identification string The display adapter portion of the H W ID identifies the device that
12. the activa tion authority The UI window lists the product ID and the hardware ID and includes an entry box to enter the license file given by the service representative over the phone The activation server 334 has an activation unit 110 to assign a license file to the software product on the customer s computer The activation unit 110 computes the license file from the product ID and the hardware ID step 156 in FIG 3 In the illustrated implementation the activation unit 110 employs a hashing algorithm 112 to compute a hash value of US 7 503 072 B2 7 the concatenated product ID and hardware ID The activation server 334 also maintains a database 114 to store the product ID hardware ID and license file step 158 in FIG 3 Pref erably these IDs are correlated in a table or other data record 116 The activation server 334 returns the license file over the network 336 to the customer computer 20 step 160 in FIG 3 In the manual case the service representative tells the customer the license file over the phone and the customer enters the license file via the UI window The license file 118 is stored locally in the system memory 22 of the customer computer 20 where it is accessible by the software program 36 step 162 in FIG 3 The program 36 is also equipped with the same hashing algorithm 112 as found in the activation unit 110 at the activation server 334 FIG 4 shows steps in a method for running the software produc
13. 20 in FIG 6 It should be noted that alternatively the software product may be allowed to operate in a reduced functionality mode where key features are limited or unavailable rather than preventing the software product from working entirely If an unscrupulous customer attempts to install the soft ware product on another computer the software product will determine that the expanded H W ID does not match the actual hardware on the computer and will self lock thereby preventing its operation on the different computer The cus tomer is then forced to contact the activation authority and if appropriate pay an additional licensing fee for an additional installation um 0 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 Another advantage is that the anti piracy system is sensi tive to the situation in which the customer has upgraded his her computer by adding components without removing components and is now attempting to reinstall the software product on the upgraded computer In this situation the expanded H W ID will still find the older components on the user s computer and will allow the software product to oper ate In other words the expanded H W ID eliminates the problem encountered when a user added a new component and only the first instance of a component was considered In this case a non expanded H W ID would sometimes find a mismatch because the new component may have been the first instance detected and would
14. 30 e g for reading a CD ROM disk 31 or to read from or write to other optical media The hard disk drive 27 magnetic disk drive 28 and optical disk drive 30 are connected to the system bus 23 by ahard disk drive interface 32 a magnetic disk drive inter face 33 and an optical drive interface 34 respectively The drives and their associated computer readable media provide nonvolatile storage for the personal computer 20 Although the description of computer readable media above refers to a hard disk a removable magnetic disk and a CD ROM disk it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of media which are readable by a computer such as US 7 503 072 B2 5 magnetic cassettes flash memory cards digital video disks Bernoulli cartridges and the like may also be used in the exemplary operating environment A number of program modules may be stored in the drives and RAM 25 including an operating system 35 application program modules 36 such as Microsoft s OFFICE 10 suite of program modules and program data 38 A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 20 through a keyboard 40 and pointing device such as a mouse 42 Other input devices not shown may include a micro phone joystick game pad satellite dish scanner or the like These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bu
15. are product repeats steps 190 198 for the next modified hardware ID When the software product exhausts all available permu tations without success this tends to indicate that the com puter is a new computer not an upgrade Accordingly the software product remains locked step 204 and forces the customer to contact the activation authority for assistance The anti piracy system is advantageous in that it allows the customer some flexibility to upgrade or modify his her com puter without locking out the program It is noted however that this method can be circumvented through incremental upgrades where a customer changes out one component at a time and reinstalls the software product after each component upgrade However the incremental upgrade approach is most likely not a viable option for the customer because it requires a large amount of time to eventually create the new computer US 7 503 072 B2 9 A variation of the anti piracy method prevents even the incremental upgrade approach but at the cost of requiring the customer to contact the activation authority any time the test ID and the license file fail to match When a mismatch occurs the software product initiates a connection with the activation server 334 and sends the product ID and hardware ID over the network 336 The activation unit 110 checks the database 114 for any prior records involving the product ID Ifrecords with the same product ID exist the activation unit
16. difficult Moreover even when improper activity is detected enforcement and legal recourse is often unavailable from a practical standpoint particularly since much of the abuse occurs in foreign lands A less subtle abuse is the improper use of a software prod uct beyond the scope of the license One common scenario involves a shrink wrap software product available at local retail stores The product is typically accompanied by a shrink wrap license to install and use the product on one computer and perhaps additionally on a laptop Unfortu nately the purchaser may intentionally or unintentionally install the product on more than the allowed computers thereby violating the license For the software manufacturer this form of abuse is very difficult to monitor and even more difficult to prosecute The computer software industry estimates billions of dol lars are lost each year due to piracy and other illicit uses While licenses provide a legal avenue for recourse against such practices the practicality of detecting and enforcing these licenses often proves too onerous for the manufacturer Accordingly software companies have a real incentive to reduce the amount of abuses through other means One conventional technique for preventing unlimited copying of a software product is to design the code with a self regulating mechanism that prevents repeated installa 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 tions This
17. ed On each launch after installation at step 604 the software product obtains the expanded hard ware ID which is stored on the computer 20 Alternatively the expanded H W ID may be stored as part of the digitally signed license file and extracted from the digitally signed license file at step 604 A portion of the expanded H W ID is obtained at step 606 As described above the expanded H W ID is typically 64 bits with portions of the bits corresponding to different hardware components of the user s computer such as the CD ROM device 30 the disk adapter 32 the disk device 27 the display adapter 48 the first drive 27 serial number the network interface 53 MAC address the processor 21 serial number the processor 21 type the RAM 25 size in Mb and the SCSI adapter 32 or 34 At step 606 a portion corresponding to one of the hardware components is retrieved from the expanded hardware ID For example the bits corresponding to the CD ROM device may be retrieved at step 606 At step 608 the bits retrieved from the expanded H W ID at step 606 are compared to all the appropriate hardware components of the user s computer 20 For example all of the CD ROM devices on the user s computer may be examined to determine whether there is a match with the bits from the expanded H W ID corresponding to the CD ROM device At step 610 it is determined whether there is a match If not then step 614 is performed However if there is
18. h as performing a modulo operation on a chunk ofthe BIOS or on the hard disk drive s serial number Table 1 shows an example construction of a 5 digit hardware ID and how the digits are derived from the corresponding component TABLE 1 Digit Place Hardware Component Method 1 BIOS Perform modulus 8 on first 2K chunk of BIOS 2 Hard Disk Drive Perform modulus 8 on 64 bit HDD serial number 3 RAM Perform modulus 9 of total bytes of RAM Perform modulus 9 on FDD configuration return value Perform modulus 9 on Video BIOS 4 Floppy disk drive 5 Video Card It is noted that other hardware components may be used For instance many computers are equipped with a network card with a unique 48 bit address A digit for the hardware ID can be derived from this global network card address More over more than or fewer than five system components may be used to derive the hardware ID The software product in this example concatenates the 15 digit product ID with the 5 digit hardware ID and sends the 20 digit value over the network 336 to the activation server 334 step 154 in FIG 3 This phase is preferably automated in that the software product automatically initiates connection with the activation server 334 to register itself with the activation authority Alternatively the software product supports an activation pilot with a graphical user interface UT dialog window ask ing the customer to call a service representative at
19. ibed herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention We claim 1 A detection system for use with the Internet for gener ating information related to pirating of a software product comprising a server in communication with said Internet a database associated with said server said software product being associated with a product id that identifies said software product a software program stored in a plurality of customer com puters utilizing said software product said software pro gram generating a hardware id for each of said customer computers so as to uniquely identify each of said plural ity of customer computers said software program automatically transferring said product id and said hardware id over said Internet to said server said server receiving and storing in said database said product id and said hardware id for each of said plu rality of customer computers said software program being installed on said plurality of customer computers along with other program modules including an operating system or network communication and an activation unit utilized by said server for determining if said product id is associated with more than one of said plurality of customer computers
20. ice the display adapter the first drive serial number the MAC address the processor serial number the processor type the RAM size in Mb and the SCSI adapter Each time the software product is opened the expanded H W ID is compared to the hardware on the com puter to determine whether a predetermined minimum num ber of components match In one embodiment the expanded H W ID allows for expansion of the user s computer because so long as the component originally listed in the expanded H W ID can be found on the computer then that component matches the expanded H W ID Typically seven out of ten components in the expanded H W ID must match the com puter before the software product will operate US 7 503 072 B2 3 In another aspect of the invention the software product is subsequently launched following installation and the soft ware product retrieves the 64 bit hardware ID The hardware ID is compared to the set of hardware components on the computer on which the software product is installed If a suitable match occurs the software product is enabled to operate on the computer Otherwise if a suitable match does not occur the software product is locked and prevented from operating on the computer Typically a suitable match is found when at least seven out of ten components identified by the hardware ID are found in the set of hardware components on the current computer Thus the invention prevents a user from installing the s
21. lation process For example if a user s computer has several CD ROM devices then the first CD ROM device encountered during installa tion is used to complete the CD ROM device portion of the expanded H W ID When the software product is started the expanded H W ID is compared to the user s computer to determine whether the expanded H W ID and the hardware components match This comparison method is described in reference to FIG 6 Version Number The expanded H W ID may also include a version number bit s The version number bit is used to indicate what the version number of the software product was when the expanded H W ID was created As technological advance ments in hardware occur over time it may be necessary to remove certain portions of the expanded H W ID from con sideration during updates to the software product The ver sion number will help identify at what point in time an expanded H W ID was created and whether or not it needs to be changed to reflect technological hardware advancements Dockable Flag The expanded H W ID may also include a dockable flag The dockable flag indicates whether the user s computer is capable of being docked as is the case with portable comput ers Ifa computer is capable of being docked and is docked at the time the expanded H W ID is generated then it is possible that elements of the docking station could be incorporated into the expanded H W ID Thus the dockable flag is set for
22. mechanism counts the number of installations and disables the software code after the product has been installed a certain number of times The underlying premise is that multiple installations tend to indicate that the user is attempt ing to install the product on multiple different computers rather than just one computer allowed by the license As an example of this concept suppose a manufacturer creates a software product and places the code ona disk such asa CD ROM or floppy diskette The disk is packaged to form ashrink wrap retail product The manufacturer generates and assigns a serialized key that uniquely identifies that product For instance the key might consist of a manufacturer ID a serialized incrementing number a registered product code and a checksum value The key is printed on a label and affixed somewhere on the product such as the CD ROM case During installation the purchaser of the software product is prompted to enter the key This step alone is designed to prevent another party from obtaining the disk only without knowledge of the key and installing the product illegally Without the key the holder of the physical disk is prevented from installing the product The product tracks the number of installations Once the purchaser enters the same key more times than a defined limit the product is disabled The purchaser is then forced to call the manufacturer for assistance While such mechanisms help reduce illici
23. not match the non expanded H W ID The expanded H W ID eliminates this problem and accommodates new components It should be understood that the expanded H W ID allows for distinguishing between two different computers while still allowing a user to add new hardware to his computer that was not previously present In a preferred embodiment the expanded H W ID allows 3 out of 10 hardware components to be removed before disabling the software product In a preferred embodiment the expanded H W ID also allows a user to have many different components such as 3 video drivers 10 hard disks etc without disabling the soft ware product so long as the no more than three ofthe original components found in the expanded H W ID have not been removed In other words the expanded H W ID is tolerant of adding new components so long as no more than three ofthe original components found in the H W ID are removed It should be understood that the process of matching the expanded H W ID to the user s computer is an iterative pro cess performed on a component by component basis Thus it should be understood that the present invention compares all of the relevant components on the user s computer with the expanded H W ID to determine whether the expanded H W ID and the computer match It should be understood that the foregoing pertains only to the preferred embodiments of the present invention and that numerous changes may be made to the embodiments descr
24. oftware product onto multiple different computers because it uses the hardware ID to identify a spe cific computer That the invention improves over the drawbacks of prior art and accomplishes the advantages described above will become apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments and the appended drawings and claims BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES FIG 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary personal com puter FIG 2 is a block diagram of an anti piracy system that facilitates activation of a software product for installation and use on a particular computer FIG 3 is a flow diagram showing steps in a method for activating the software product for use on the computer FIG 4 is a flow diagram showing steps in a method for running the software product on the computer FIG 5 is a flow diagram showing steps in a method for running the software product after the computer has been upgraded FIG 6 is a flow diagram showing steps in a method for running the software product with an expanded hardware ID DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be incorpo rated into the OFFICE 10 suite of program modules mar keted by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Wash Briefly described in one embodiment the invention is an expanded 64 bit hardware ID H W ID for tying a software product to a particular computer to prevent software piracy The 64 bit
25. ograms compo nents data structures etc that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types Moreover those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations includ ing hand held devices multiprocessor systems microproces sor based or programmable consumer electronics minicom puters mainframe computers and the like The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network In a distrib uted computing environment program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices With reference to FIG 1 an exemplary system for imple menting the invention includes a conventional personal com puter 20 including a processing unit 21 a system memory 22 and a system bus 23 that couples the system memory to the processing unit 21 The system memory 22 includes read only memory ROM 24 and random access memory RAM 25 A basic input output system 26 BIOS containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the personal computer 20 such as during start up is stored in ROM 24 A video BIOS 60 is also stored in ROM 24 The personal computer 20 further includes a hard disk drive 27 a magnetic disk drive 28 e g to read from or write to a removable disk 29 and an optical disk drive
26. overnment anti piracy activities in China Hsu Dahsiung Proceedings of the SPIE The Interna tional Society for Optical Engineering Conference 1998 v 3358 p 318 321 CD DVD piracy the replicator the user and the technology D G Block EMedia Professional Dec 1997 v 10 n 12 p 92 96 98 100 102 104 106 107 Preventive and deterrent controls for software piracy R D Gopal and G L Sanders Journal of Management Information Systems Spring 1997 v 13 n 4 p 29 47 Foiling corporate software pirates D H Freedman High Technol ogy Jul 1995 v 5 n 7 p 62 64 Sofiware piracy stopping it before it stops you Mark B Johnson Proceedings of the Sixteenth ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services 1988 p 295 299 Sofiware watermarking models and dynamic embeddings Christian Colberg and Clark Thomborson Proceedings of the 26 ACM SIGPLAN SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Lan guages 1999 p 311 324 How to prove where you are tracking the location of customer equipment Eran Gabber and Avishai Wool Proceedings of the 5 ACM conference on Computer and Communications Security 1998 p 142 149 Handling site licensing agreements and public domain software architecture John D Chovan Proceedings of the ACM SIGUCCS XIII Conference on User Services pulling it all together 1985 p 175 179 Digital signets self enforcing protection of digital information pre liminary version Cynthia Dwork Jeffre
27. portable computers and if the dockable flag is set when the expanded H W ID is examined then several portions of the expanded H W ID disk adapter display adapter and SCSI adapter are not compared to the user s computer when deter mining whether to allow the software product to fully operate Comparing Expanded Hardware ID with a Computer FIG 6 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 600 for comparing the expanded H W ID to the user s computer when the software product is started Generally described if seven out of ten of the components in the expanded H W ID are found in the computer then the computer matches the expanded hardware ID and the soft ware product is allowed to fully operate The expanded hard ware ID is oftentimes useful because when matching the expanded hardware ID to the machine the process iterates through the components of the computer to determine if any ofthe computer s components match the expanded hardware ID For example if the computer s main disk drive does not match the expanded hardware ID then the process will iterate US 7 503 072 B2 11 through all of the computer s disk drives to determine if another one matches the expanded hardware ID FIG 6 shows steps in a method for running the software product 36 with an expanded hardware ID on the computer 20 The steps are performed by software code within the software product on the customer computer At step 602 the software product is start
28. r by other means such as electronic mail fax machine postal mail or telephone For discussion purposes the customer computer is described as a personal computer such as a desktop or por table computer However as used herein the term com puter is intended to mean essentially any type of computing device or machine that is capable of running a software prod uct including such devices as communication devices e g pagers telephones electronic books electronic magazines and newspapers etc and personal and home consumer devices e g handheld computers Web enabled televisions home automation systems multimedia viewing systems etc Within the described context the network 336 is repre sentative of an Internet or intranet or a local or wide area network However the network 336 may be implemented in many different forms including both wire based networks e g cable telephone fiber optic etc and wireless networks e g RF satellite microwave etc FIG 1 and the following discussion are intended to provide a brief general description of an exemplary customer com puter 20 While the invention will be described in the general context of an application program that runs on an operating system in conjunction with a personal computer those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention also may be imple mented in combination with other program modules Gener ally program modules include routines pr
29. rdware ID step 192 and computes a new test ID using the hashing algorithm 112 step 194 At step 196 the software product retrieves the license file 118 from memory 22 and compares it to the test ID If the two match i e the yes branch from step 198 this suggests that that only one component has been changed or upgraded but rest of the computer remains substantially the same Thus the computer is deemed an upgrade and not a new computer The software product is enabled to operate on the computer step 200 in FIG 5 Ifno match occurs i e the no branch from step 198 the software product remains locked At step 202 the software product checks whether it has exhausted all possible new combinations of digits As an example suppose the software manufacturer wants to draw a distinction between a computer with one or two new hardware components which the manu facturer deems an upgrade and a computer with three or more new hardware components which the manufacturer deems anew computer and not an upgrade In this case the software product is configured to change at most up to two digits within the five digit hardware ID while keeping at least three digits the same This process essentially determines whether at most two out of the five hardware components are different If the software product has not exhausted all avail able permutations of the hardware ID i e the no branch from step 202 the softw
30. rked environment program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 20 or portions thereof may be stored in the remote memory storage device It will be appreciated that the network con nections shown are exemplary and other means of establish ing a communications link between the computers may be used With reference again to FIG 2 suppose a customer pur chases a software product for running on the computer 20 In this illustration the software product is in the form of a shrink wrap product 222 having a software program stored on a transportable computer readable medium such as a CD ROM or floppy diskette In other implementations the soft ware product may be delivered electronically over a network The customer loads the software product onto the computer 20 as a program 36 stored in system memory 22 During installation the customer is prompted to enter a portion ofthe product ID ofthe software product The product ID PID in this case is partially derived from the CD key 224 printed on the label ofthe shrink wrap package The customer enters the CD key 224 which is associated with the program 36 Additionally another portion ofthe product ID is already included in the software program 36 and the software product combines the portion with the CD key into a product ID that is unique to the specific installation As part of the installation process the customer registers the software product with the activation authorit
31. s but may be connected by other interfaces such as a game port or a universal serial bus USB A monitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 23 via an interface such as a video adapter 48 In addition to the monitor personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices not shown such as speakers or printers The personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers such as a remote computer 49 The remote com puter 49 may be a server a router a peer device or other common network node and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the personal computer 20 although only a memory storage device 50 has been illus trated in FIG 1 The logical connections depicted in FIG 1 include a local area network LAN 51 and a wide area net work WAN 52 Such networking environments are com monplace in offices enterprise wide computer networks Intranets and the Internet When used in a LAN networking environment the per sonal computer 20 is connected to the LAN 51 through a network interface 53 When used in a WAN networking envi ronment the personal computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 52 such as the Internet The modem 54 which may be internal or external is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46 In a netwo
32. t 36 on the computer 20 The method is described with continuing reference to FIG 2 The steps are performed by software code within the software product on the customer computer At step 170 the software product is started On each launch after installation the software product obtains the product ID 102 step 172 and generates the hardware ID from the set of hardware components within the computer step 174 At step 176 the software product 36 computes its own test ID from the product ID and hardware ID using the hashing algorithm 112 This is the same hashing algorithm as employed by the activation unit 110 when computing the original license file 118 The software product 36 retrieves the original license file 118 from memory 22 step 178 in FIG 4 and compares the test ID to the license file 118 step 180 in FIG 4 If the two match i e the yes branch from step 182 the software product is enabled to operate on the com puter step 184 On the other hand if no match occurs i e the no branch from step 182 the software product is locked and prevented from operating on the computer step 186 in FIG 4 The anti piracy system is effective at stopping repeated installation of the same software product on multiple different machines In the typical case the test and license files will not match ifthe hardware ID is different now than it was when the customer first registered the software product with the acti vation
33. t copying they often cause other problems in the form of consumer inconve nience For instance the premise that more installations than a requisite number means illegal use may be wrong in some cases A user who has upgraded his her computer for example should be able to legitimately reinstall the software product on the upgraded machine However if the requisite number of installations has already been reached the product will not install forcing the user who is now disgruntled to call the manufacturer for assistance Accordingly there remains a need for improved technol ogy solutions to piracy and illicit use while recognizing and accommodating the needs and practices of a legitimate pur chaser SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention meets the above described needs by providing a system for enabling enforcement of written soft ware licensing terms for a software product for use with a computer having a set of hardware components In one aspect the system includes a software product resi dent ona computer the software product having an associated product ID The software product generates a hardware ID that identifies the set of hardware components on the com puter In one embodiment a 64 bit hardware ID that identifies a set of ten hardware components within the computer is derived The 64 bit hardware ID represents ten different com ponents ofthe user s computer the CD ROM device the disk adapter the disk dev
34. ter before the software product will fully operate 1 Claim 6 Drawing Sheets 300 Pd Activation Unit n2 Hashing Algorithm Activation Database Pio Hw vo ue sie ee 114 116 Activation Authority US 7 503 072 B2 Page 2 U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 502 831 A 3 1996 Grube et al 395 427 5 509 070 A 4 1996 Schull oo eee 380 4 5 651 064 A 7 1997 Newell wwa 705 51 5 666 411 A 9 1997 McCarty we 380 4 5 671 412 A 9 1997 Christiano etal 395 615 5 754 864 A 5 1998 Hill iii 395 712 5 757 907 A 5 1998 Cooper et al we 380 4 5 761 649 A 6 1998 Hill e 705 27 5 790 664 A 8 1998 Coley etal 380 4 5 835 911 A 11 1998 Nakagawa et al 2 707 203 5 892 900 A 4 1999 Ginteretal 395 186 5 940 504 A 8 1999 Griswold 380 4 5 968 175 A 10 1999 Morishita et al 713 200 6 041 411 A 3 2000 Wyatt 713 200 6 044 471 A 3 2000 Colvin 713 202 6 085 324 A 7 2000 Ogram etal 713 202 6 240 401 Bl 5 2001 Oren etal 705 40 6 243 468 Bl 6 2001 Pearce etal 380 255 6 244 758 Bl 6 2001 Solymar et al 395 200 54 6 449 645 Bl 9 2002 Nash we 709 224 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Rallying the disc patrol protection schemes for CD and DVD D Galante Block EMedia Professional Dec 1998 v 11 n 12 p 34 8 40 3 Anti counterfeiting holograms and g
35. y This authority might be for example the product manufacturer or 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 an authorized third party The activation process allows the customer to activate the software product for installation and use on a specific computer FIG 3 shows steps in a method for activating the software product 36 for installation and use on the computer 20 The method is described with continuing reference to FIG 2 The steps are performed in software by the software product on the customer computer and by an activation unit 110 on the activation server At step 150 the software product 36 obtains its product ID 102 As an example the product ID consists of a 5 digit RPC registered product code value for the software product a3 digit site value indicating a place of manufacture and a 7 digit serialized number that is incremented with each product The software product 36 generates a hardware ID H W ID that identifies a set ofhardware components that make up the customer s computer 20 step 152 The hardware ID may be a multi digit value having at least one digit representing each of the corresponding system components As an example the software product generates a 5 digit hardware ID that includes a single digit for each of five system compo nents BIOS 26 VBIOS 60 RAM 25 hard disk drive 27 and floppy disk drive 28 A digit for a given system component can be derived in different ways suc
36. y Lotspieh and Moni Naor Proceedings of the Twenty eighth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing 1996 p 489 498 Globetrotter Software Inc FLEXIm End User Manual Chapters 1 7 1996 cited by examiner US 7 503 072 B2 Sheet 1 of 6 Mar 10 2009 U S Patent eq weibold ainpo ueJ60Jg uoneorddy ejeq sa npoW ueJ601g wejbojd einpojy ueJ60Jgd ge uoneoyddy wajsAs Bunesado asno w a cr er Jayndwoy ayowey ueJ604d LS eoelejul Jald siq adepaju 9AUQ ASIC oneuBbe y ooeuejul e ug xSIQ pJeH sajnpoyy ueJ60Jg ez uoneouddy asejaju OMJON Jeues Jeondo WOMAN LAY 2907 sng ulajs S ce wayshg Bunejedo Jaydepy Lun O3PIA Buissadojd 8p YA sold ZZ vC WOU Asoway wajsks US 7 503 072 B2 Sheet 2 of 6 Mar 10 2009 U S Patent c big jnoujny USHOATOV joujojsn5 zai 4 b aly esueon ey on ar M H did 8l esoqpioq a ZOL UOHDAYOY eu esueon z ay ulyso IUsbH u1DJOOJd oc 4 4 Gl M H Ald co SEROR e HUN uo DAI 2v lg JojnduJo sawon JOAIQS UOHDANLO V Oc Olt O4su vee CCC 00 U S Patent Mar 10 2009 Sheet 3 of 6 US 7 503 072 B2 Software Product on Activation Unit on Customer Computer Product Provider Server 150 Get PID Generate Hardware ID H W ID 154 Send PID and H W ID To Activation Authority 156 Compute License file 158 Store
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